ASA Watch

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld complaints against an Internet banner ad, for the clothing brand Blue Skin, featuring several models in Blue Skin’s clothing and said “Clothes that help you get laid…” The ASA agreed with the complainant, that the ad, seen on the dating site faceparty.com, was irresponsible, as it made an explicit reference to sexual activity, and could be seen to condone or encourage underage sex on a website used by teenagers. The ASA also upheld complaints against MyFamily.com Inc t/a Ancestry.co.uk for a magazine ad, for an internet based genealogy service, featuring an endorsement from TV presenter, Tony Robinson, which stated “Everything you’ll ever need to research your family tree in one place”, and promised ‘free’ access to census records. The ASA agreed that the ad was misleading because it did not make sufficiently clear that the website only offered access to the English and Welsh censuses and did not offer access to Scottish censuses; and that the claim ‘Everything you’ll ever need ‘ was too categorical a claim, as many documents still had to be sent away for, and was likely to mislead .